China India Musings

Sunday, July 6, 2014

In 2013 3.5 million
Chinese couples filed for a divorce - an increase of 12.3% over the previous
year. The Chinese marriage is in a crisis and more and more Chinese are
choosing to part ways with their partners and live on their own. Of course many
more, particularly educated women (often referred to as shengnu - leftover
women or victorious women - depending on the character for "sheng"
and your point of view) are choosing not to cast their lot with anyone at all.
Similar statistics are hard to come by for the number of Chinese consumers who
divorce the brands they have been using, often after years of relationship.
However it is clear that the consumers' predilections in personal lives
are also reflected in their purchase behavior and brand choice. Chinese
purchase behavior is characterized by promiscuity and flirtatiousness, and
often resistant to settling down in a faithful and long lasting relationship.
What are the root causes of this Chinese detachment and is there a commonality
between what is causing the Chinese to shed their bonds with their partners and
with their brands?

Why do so many Chinese
marriages end up in a divorce? And do similar reasons prompt them to cast aside
the brands they were once in love with? Research shows that there are four main
reasons which prompt the Chinese couples to part ways.

First and foremost it is
an erosion of trust. It could be a lack of trust in the spouse's fidelity, or
financial conduct or the single-mindedness of the devotion. The brand marriage
is also rocked by a lack of trust. Chinese consumers are prompt in divorcing a
brand which they feel cannot be trusted - whether it is in terms of safety,
quality or honesty. Of special note here is the aspect of safety, where many
consumers feel let down by brands which offered products which could harm the
health of the consumers and their families.

The second cause of
marital discord and subsequent break-up is financial differences. Who should
pay the mortgage or the maintenance, where and how should the savings be
invested and who should command the household finances. Brand marriage is also
rocked by financial differences. Chinese consumers decide to divorce the brand
if they feel it is charging them too much and isn't really giving them a good
value for their money. Value assurance is perpetual challenge for brands and
they need to continuously monitor their perceived worth in the consumer mind.

Marriages also crumble
and the couple become distant when their interests and needs start diverging.
Brand marriages also crumble when the consumers' interests and needs change and
the brands are not able to adapt to the changing needs. Consumer needs are
evolving and becoming more sophisticated. Brands need to sharpen and
contemporize their proposition to keep up with these changes.

Finally marriages
flounder when the love starts to disappear and the relationship becomes a
functional dependency and loses the emotional bond which brought the couple
together. Couples keep their relationships vibrant and fresh by tender touches,
emotional gestures and meaningful communication. Brands in China also need to
learn to sustain the romance and keep the marriage healthy and long
lasting.

Managing consumer brand
relationships becomes so much easier when we try to understand them with the
metaphor of human relationships. Is your relationship with your consumers a
healthy and stable marriage or is it a marriage-on-the-rocks?

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

The Ministry of Commerce in China recently announced, that the nation has toppled the US and taken the crown of the world’s largest merchandising trader. Much of this achievement is based on an extraordinary success in manufacturing. China has clearly established its name for its manufacturing prowess. Half its gross domestic product is accounted for by manufacturing. Its plant and factories, churning out huge quantities of washing machines, refrigerators and mobile phones, cater to the insatiable demand of consumer goods in China and also cater to the global appetite for cheap goods. China is the largest trading partner of 120 countries, including India, and with most of them enjoys a favorable balance of payments situation because of successful export of its merchandise. China hence has developed capabilities to efficiently produce these goods not just to meet its own demand, and export to the whole world.

There are several factors which provided a fertile ground for the development of China’s manufacturing industry. China's manufacturing strength is due to its entrepreneurship, good infrastructure and efficient supply chain. The manufacturing boom also occurred at the cusp of huge urbanization, when millions of young Chinese villagers were free and eager to move out to supplement their meagre agricultural income and willing to work as cheap labour in factories. But the manufacturing industry also owes a debt to the fact that as a people, the Chinese are prone to follow instructions, stick to processes and work in a disciplined manner - exactly what manufacturing calls for.

On the other hand, services, though growing healthily, remain a weakness of the Chinese economic model. The Chinese tend to apply the same uniform standards and processes to services, which they employ to manufacturing. This often results in a sub-optimal offer, as services intrinsically have a higher variability in its demand. A three star hotel in China will nearly uniformly provide you clean rooms and sheets, a functioning television and a passable restaurant – but seldom anything more. The Chinese service model is based on the principles of assembly line of the manufacturing process. The service is divided neatly into different processes and a standardized delivery of a basic quality is designed for each element. Standardization rather than customization is the goal. Airport staff at boarding gates in Chinese airports play recorded "thank you" messages while they scan the boarding cards. “If you have to thank every customer, why not have a recording to spew it out than leave it to the whim of fickle humans,” the Chinese think.

Indians on the other hand are free-spirited, creative creatures of their own whim and will. They need variety and opportunity for creativity and extemporisation. Manufacturing is stifling for the Indians - it is the creative, on the feet servicing which is their forte. Unlike China’s manufacturing dominated GDP, it is the services which reign supreme in India, accounting for more than half its GDP.

The Indian service model, is based on the concept of customised service, which results in more tailor-made and specific solutions for the customer, often resulting in a higher level of problem solving and satisfaction. However, the Indian service also embodies a high level of variance.A three star hotel in India will show high variation with a quality of facilities and service which could, on one end rival a five star hotel, and on the other hand offer barely liveable accommodation.

Additionally, the Indian model is vulnerable to the whims of fancies for the people who are providing the service. If you are lucky, you will be greeted with a beaming smile, solicitous attitude, and made to feel like a king. On a bad day (her bad day, which soon becomes your bad day too) you may be scowled at and blamed for interrupting her well-deserved rest.

But most of all, her behaviour and attitude will be based on what she feels the particular customer deserves. Coming from deep notions of a class based society, the behavior will often depend upon at what level or class of society does the person behind the counter pegs you at. Hence, if you are neatly dressed, exude an air of confidence and sophistication, you may be greeted with a smile. On the other hand if you present a bedraggled appearance and are classified as ordinary riff-raff you may be treated with perfunctory callousness. While flexibility is an asset for Indian service, extreme variability is a weakness. Indian model could do with a bit of standardization and learn fromthe highly homogeneous, low variance output of the Chinese

In this context India's software industry is clearly vulnerable to competition from China. In the long run Chinese are likely to prove themselves to be better in writing code than the Indians - though Indians may still hold an edge in the systems analysis and design. Surely this presents an obvious opportunity for cooperation and collaboration between the two countries.

Written by Ashok Sethi

Ashok is the Managing Director of GfK (a Global provider of market research and consumer insights) in China

Saturday, February 15, 2014

China today has 618 million internet users. Internet has pervaded all aspects of life - from buying fresh vegetables, to seeking employment or seeking a life partner. The new year festivities, are on the other hand, one would expect would be seeped in tradition and celebrate the timeless customs. However in China the new year festivities, heralding the year of the horse, have taken a distinctive digital turn.

Firstly, the new year is a time for reunion with families, particularly for the 260 million migrant workers, who toil throughout the year, often away from their families and children. Hence procuring a train ticket to arrive home is of utmost importance. A few years ago, the Chinese railway went online and started offering tickets on its website www.12306.cn. The ticket sales would normally begin around a week before the commencement of the journey. Within a few seconds the system is bombarded with millions of requests, and the tickets are often sold out even before you can successfully log in. Local internet companies like came to the rescue with plug-ins which automate the process of trying to login and get into the system. Of course, many cried foul against such ticket snatching plugs, but not before millions were able to benefit from this software to secure a ticket for a ride home, prompting the website to take steps to block the intrusion from such rogue plug-ins.

Then there is the practice of exchanging greetings, and wishing each other success, happiness and most importantly prosperity in the coming year. Mobile phone SMS became the de facto medium and 31 billion short messages were exchanged over the cellular network in 2013. 2014, however, saw a sharp decline in the use of SMS - only 18 billion SMS greetings were exchanged - an over 40% decline over last year. The exchange of greetings shifted online, particularly to WeChat, an online messaging platform akin to WhatsApp.

And lastly, the new year is not only the time to exchange greetings, but also more substantial hongbaos or red envelops, normally stuffed with a certain amount of cash, and dished out particularly to the younger and the junior. The hongbao gifting also made its way to the digital arena, with the facility to gift a hongbao from WeChat. You do that by linking your bank card with your WeChat account, which allows you to gift money, just as it allows a host of other e-commerce activities. Tencent (owners of WeChat) claimed that more than 75 million hongbaos were gifted during the first three days of the Chinese new year.

Digital, hence, has conquered another area of tradition, but in true Chinese spirit, not by destroying what is precious and beautiful in the age old practices, but by further enhancing the joys and jubilations associated with this important festival of China.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Quite often when people think of innovation they think of Apple and the iphone. That such innovation is also relevant for emerging and developing markets is proven by the fact that China has already become the second largest market for Apple. But there is more to innovation in emerging markets that producing cute gadgets.

If we define the purpose of innovation as the process which leads to a better satisfaction of consumer needs, or an improvement in the quality of life of the consumers, we need to firstly look at the profile of the target population of the consumers in emerging markets and see what kind of innovations can they benefit from. While luxury goods may be booming in emerging markets, they also house over a billion people living below the poverty line. Even the emerging middle class in these markets has much more modest spending power than the middle class in the West. This implies that while the Western style innovation of smart technology and slick designs is still relevant in the emerging markets, there is also a totally new kind of innovation required for consumers who are actively seeking improvements in their lives it terms of basic aspects such as clean and safe drinking water, affordable housing, better education for their children and basic services such as banking. It is not surprising then that m-pesa a mobile phone based money transfer service emerged in Africa and not from the developed markets.

Jugaad innovation

We often use the term "jugaad innovation" in the context of emerging markets. Jugaad innovation is normally used to describe, relatively low cost, problem solving, basic, grass-root level innovation that is often the result of consumer and manufacturer ingenuity, directed at solving some problems and improving the quality of life for consumers. In the Western context, innovation is expensive as it involves expensive R&D, scores of Ph.D's pouring over their microscopes to discover new magical formulas. Innovation is normally a long drawn process with very little short-term return. While companies like Lenovo and Huawei are engaged in this Western style investment, only the most successful companies can afford to put in these kind of resources. For most companies in emerging markets the only route is frugal innovation.

Secondly, most innovation in the Western world is top-down - as the consumer needs in most areas are actually well satisfied and it is the companies, who in search of higher profits and beating the competition are looking for ways to provide that extra stimulation and thrill to the consumers. However in the emerging markets, innovation often starts at the grass-root level, as the consumers have unsatisfied needs and often resort to cheap and crude but still workable solutions to seek solutions for their problems.

Chinese digital innovation

While the Western companies lead in innovation for technology products, one of the most active areas of innovation in China is the technology services in the digital and mobile arena. True, the Westerns platforms of Facebook and Twitter are not accessible to the average Chinese- but they have something much more suitable to their needs - Weibo. Just as twitter, Weibo allows you to express anything in 140 characters. Of course in Chinese, each character is actually a word, and hence you can say a lot more in 140 characters in Chinese than you can do in English or most other languages. Weibo has attracted more than 300 m users within a few years and has become a platform for discussion of everything from brands to social issues to corruption. Through Weibo urban young Chinese have found a relatively open but still an acceptable way to express themselves. Weibo has emerged and evolved in a uniquely Chinese way to satisfy the needs of the Chinese consumers.

Similarly while Western companies like eBay and Amazon have made little headway in China, the Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao has 600,000 vendors selling everything from tablet PCs to freshly slaughtered chicken. Taobao was able to innovate to address several resistances towards e-commerce in China - which included a mistrust between sellers and buyers, low penetration of credit cards and extreme price sensitivity. Both Weibo and taobao have developed not through top-down innovation but through their users who have moulded the platforms to best satisfy their needs.

Innovation in emerging markets is extremely important. Not only can it add to the coffers of corporations, it can change and even save lives. Of course, to be effective it needs to be anchored to the consumer needs and a discovery of what can enrich their lives.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

It is just to state the obvious that the Internet has totally transformed the
world for both the shoppers and the retailers. Shoppers have taken to online
shopping with gusto and entrepreneurs and businesses are straining hard to
exploit the opportunity. In the early days of Internet, it was common to consider
the web as a resource or an aid to shopping, and it was expected that consumers
will rely on the Net to look for information about products, to locate a
store where they can buy and to perhaps look for advice and assistance on how
to make the right choice. It is indeed true and nearly all agree that the
Internet has become a very useful resource for shopping. However clearly it has
gone far beyond that and has become a gigantic marketplace - consumers are
buying everything from luxury goods, shampoo, automobiles and freshly
slaughtered chicken on the Internet.

Online shopping has not just
established itself in the developed markets, it has firmly established itself
in the developing markets and e-tailing already accounts for 5-6 percent of
2012 retail sales in China and about 5 percent in the United States. In China
online sales recorded an astonishing estimated 60% year-on-year growth in 2012
(Source: McKinsey. MGI China e-tailing report)

Last year online shoppers grew by 25% in
China, with nearly 50 million new shoppers added to the fold (Source: CNNIC
January 2013). The growth of group buying or tuan gou (which actually
originated in China), also continues. We also see that consumers are losing
their fear on online payments. In the initial era of online shopping, cash on
delivery used to be a common method of payment, but thanks to Taobao (the
largest online shopping platform in China with more than 6 million merchants
listing their products), and the escrow system of payment known as Zhifubao,
which protects both the buyers and the sellers, online shoppers are now ready
to pay online.

The circuitous consumer journey

For the consumers the two worlds of
online and offline shopping are now intrinsically intertwined. In the initial
days of online shopping the consumers often looked for information on products
online but the then returned to the comfort and security of the familiar bricks
and mortar environment to lighten their wallets. While this is still a reality,
the other phenomenon is more prevalent and on the rise - consumers today often
touch and feel the product in the traditional stores, but come back to their
comfortable chair at home, where they sit in front of their favorite computer
or the newly acquired tablet and enjoy in-home retail therapy by clicking the
"Buy" button.

The fact is that today the Internet is
as much a part of the retail scenario, as is the supermarket or the
hypermarket. Whether you are a retailer or a marketer of brands, it is no
longer a question of developing an e-commerce strategy - the task really is to
entirely reshape and develop a retail strategy for the digital world.

Online, offline and seamless..

This juggernaut of online sales has
huge implications on the online as well as the traditional retail industry. It
is not possible to understand the implications for e-commerce unless we simultaneously
look at and compare the respective roles that online retail and conventional
retail are carving for themselves. And to understand that we must understand
what consumers expect in an online environment and what are their expectations
in a traditional store.

Consumers are very clear when they
think about what is important to them in an online store – ‘saving money’, ‘more
payment and delivery options’ and ‘better
selection and delivery’ top the list. The needs from an offline store are very
different. ‘Ability to touch and feel the products’, ‘satisfaction of immediate
delivery’, ‘better service’ and ‘enjoyable
experience’ top the list. So the two channels have very different strengths and
at this moment at least, it is too early to proclaim the demise of the traditional
trade, though some change in its role is definitely in the offing

According to Deloitte’s Store 3.0
Survey among retail executives, it is apparent that the role as well as form of
a bricks and mortar store will inevitably change. Today the executives say that
he role of in-store employees is largely in providing basic purchase service
and assistance and display some product knowledge. But this is expected to be
totally transformed five years from now, when the most important skill of the
workers will be to be able to leverage technology to enrich the customers'
experience. Another important role of the sales staff will be to act as brand
ambassadors. In fact retail executives indicated that in five years, providing
customers with a compelling brand experience will become the primary role of
the store.

So what does it augur for the future
of online and offline trade. Online retailers need to clearly understand, that
they lag behind the traditional trade when it comes to providing
immediate gratification, intimate touch and feel, the immersive experience and
the joy of shopping. They need to look at innovative ways of providing that
intimacy - can technology be used to provide a better virtual touch and feel of
the products, can virtual reality be used to help consumers come closer to the
product? Can they collaborate with traditional retailers or can they establish
their own limited brick and mortar presence (as some of them are doing already)?

For offline retailers, the task it to
zealously guard and enhance their ability to facilitate human interaction with
the consumer. The store's function is not just to act as a convenient
transaction center, it is to provide a valuable and important experience to the
customer. For brands it is an opportunity to develop a relationship and bond
with the customer, which is more of a challenge in an impersonal online
environment. The most successful retailers will be those who can offer the best
of both offline and online shopping and in fact offer a seamless
shopping experience in which the shoppers can effortlessly move from online to
offline, back to online then again to offline if they so desire .

This
article is based on FutureBuy 2013 - a research study conducted by GfK in 14
markets across the world – which focuses on understanding shopping trends
across the globe.

The Chinese new year is a festival of
joy, family reunion, fun and celebration. However when 1.3 billion Chinese
decide to celebrate and get reunited with their families during the
same seven day period, it generates unprecedented competition for limited
resources and ensuing hardship. At the same time it generates a commercial
bonanza. According to data from the Ministry of
Commerce in China, total retail sales during the week long
festivities reached 539 billion yuan ($86 billion)- 14.7% more than last year.
The commercial opportunities do not just exist for the big retailers and
manufacturers, this special time of the year generates some rather niche, ingenious
but also sometimes dubious commercial activity.

Take me home

The most intense competition during
this period is for transportation to go back home. According to popular
estimates in the media, the Chinese will make 3.4 billion trips during the peak
40 day travel period around the Chinese New Year, of which 3.1 billion will be
road trips. 220 million are expected to take a train ride during this
period. Online ticketing, which started just a few years ago, was expected
to make the whole process relatively painless - however it turned out to be a barrier
for migrant workers in buying tickets to go back home during the spring
festival. According to a survey by the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade,
more than 90% of the migrant workers preferred taking a train to go back home
and almost 80% of them said that they would do so by buying tickets from a
ticket office. 70% of them said that they were not familiar with the online
ticketing procedure and only 18% had tried using the online ticketing service.
A kindly couple who was offering the service for online ticket purchase at a
small fee to migrant workers was apprehended with the accusation of
touting.

For those who are internet literate
the task of making a booking is no less arduous. The average daily number of
hits on the website has topped 120 million during the peak days. Online sales
are now responsible for over a third of total tickets, accounting for as many
as 6 million tickets a day. The buyers often face interminable waits while
the overtaxed computers cope up with the deluge of booking requests. In an
exhibition of ingenuity, three internet giants - Qihoo360, Kingsoft and Sogou -
designed plug-ins for browsers to automate the task of repeatedly trying to
login and buying train tickets on the overloaded train booking
website. Critics opined that the software gives the internet savvy an
unfair advantage to secure the much prized tickets.

The road less travelled

Many consumers are taking the
"road less travelled" with one entrepreneur from Hangzhou choosing to
take 48 buses to reach his home in Linyi in Shandong. Another enterprising soul
undertook the arduous journey back home using 8 train tickets and transfers
from Shanghai to his home town in Sichuan. As direct tickets are most difficult
to secure, this segmented approach worked well for him and he was able to get
home smoothly and relatively quickly. In fact the train enthusiast is offering
consultancy to others on identifying circuitous routes back home where ticket
purchase is still a possibility.

Meet your future son/daughter-in-law

When the young city workers go home,
the parents are solicitous about their quest for marriage partners. Those who
have not achieved success in this area, are worried about creating anxiety among
their parents and persistent pressure on themselves. Taobao, china's online
megastore, which offers everything from the latest iPad to freshly slaughtered
chicken, comes to rescue on this count also. For a few thousand yuan, any
unattached youth can hire someone who would pretend to be his or her future
life partner during the golden week that is spent with the parents. Things do
not always go as smoothly and dispassionately as planned, with a genuine spark
of affection for the hired companion.

Happy meals

Those who have already tied the knot
and are the sole bearers of the family name and hopes for their parents ( as a
result of family planning) need to make the difficult decision of with which
set of parents should they have the nianyefan or the New Year's Eve dinner.
Restaurants have come to the rescue urging the young from hosting the dinner at
their premises, including both set of parents and even grandparents. The
service is popular and the good restaurants are often booked months in advance.

Packaging for 'face'

Of course, when you go home you must
carry gifts. Migrant workers who have left their children in their home towns
and villages in the custody of their elders, have no dearth of what they can
buy, and go back home loaded with toys for their children. The elderly are
often rewarded with health foods, which will provide them with even more energy
and stamina to look after their grandchildren. Marketers often exploit the
gifters' need for face and desire to be seen as someone who has done well in
the city and has come back with generous and valuable gifts. The often modest
gifts are made to look more alluring and grand through excessive packaging. The
authorities have taken notice of this and are coming down or deceptive and
wasteful use of extravagant packaging.

Sleep well while you travel home

A product named "sleep
support" has gained popularity on the internet as a sleep support for
sitting upright sleep. The gadget provides head and chest support to the users,
while sleeping upright on a train. a netizen suggested that if the
instrument can also provide a place for comfortably holding an iPad its value
will be considerably enhanced.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Like every year we went through our ups and downs in 2012, holding our breath, praying, cursing , rejoicing and regretting. But it was delightful to see that the year ended with a cry of joy (or rather the promise of a cry) when it was declared that Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge was expecting a baby. Through sheer luck and extraordinary coincidence, prince William a kind of heir to the British throne and Kate's husband, is expecting the same! The British (or rather the world's) cup of joy runeth over and we should see a brighter and more prosperous 2013. David Cameroon, the British Prime Minister said that he was delighted at hearing the news. John Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the austerity (not abstinence) measures seem to be paying at last and the end of recession can not be far now. The world will listen to every gurgle, splutter and burp coming from the royal mahogany cot and look once again at the future with a sense of optimism. Such good fortune while the British were still basking in the glory of the Olympian sun, and the Queen's diamond jubilee! Experts feel that this will make the British a less cynical nation and might transform the nation of stiff upper lips to one of drooping lower jaws.

Pantagon

General Petraeus, who moved a while ago from Pentagon to CIA, apparently left his pants behind and was caught without them, having an affair with his biographer. "I wasn't content just having my name on the book, and wanted to get under the covers," said Paula Broadwell, his biographer. It was a shirtless FBI agent who blew the whistle on the trouser less General Petraeus. The story captivated the American public's attention, while the nation was having its pants taken in Afghanistan.

A number of other countries competed to put forward their own sex scandals. In UK news channel BBC was itself in the news, when it accused one who didn't of sexual offences, and broadcasted Christmas tributes to the one who did it. Thankfully Jimmy Saville, the one who did it, is dead and severely handicapped in doing it again.

New leadership

After a grueling electoral battle with Mitt Romney, Barack Obama won the tenancy of the White House for four more years. Mitt put up a brave fight and spent a lot of money to evict Obama but failed to win favour of "binders full of women", and hordes of Asians and non-whites who set their faith in Obama. Obama's acceptance speech saw a change of sponsor from Metal Can Company (and hence the slogan -Yes, we can) to American Best Foods (the Best for America is yet to come). Perpetually being scolded by his wife Michele for not listening to her, Obama embraced her on Twitter and proudly announced "Four more ears". The Economist urged him to follow this with an embrace of a Republican.

New leadership also surfaced in the most important country in the world and Xi Jin Pin replaced Hu, while Wen looked on. Bent on making a difference, Xi started by setting a record for the shortest speech delivered by a senior Chinese leader. He announced, to the amazement of everyone, that the mission of the party was to look after the needs of the people. He also made the political leaders tongue tied by banning "empty talk" and red carpet receptions, with bouquets, banquets, expensive Chinese liquor and smiling children. The share price of all Chinese white spirits companies has been coming down and orphanages putting up more smiling children for adoption after the announcement.

In Russia, Vladamir Putin decided that Russia is yet to realize its full Putintial and moved back into the presidential palace. A man called Hollande was elected leader, not of the Netherlands, but France, and is showing Dutch courage by attempting to raise the tax rate of on the wealthiest French to 75% of their income.

Liberal world

It was a good year for GLTB's as three states in America voted to legalise marriage between partners of the same sex. Several other states are expected to follow suit, while some are considering gay marriages to be the only legal marriages in their territories. Some American states changed their attitude towards marijuana usage and said that they will not try to shoot or blow up recreational users of the drug. The Netherlands on the other hand demanded a proof of Dutch citizenship before serving the stuff in its cafes, saying that it was worried about crime, though it did push tourism (as well as the tourists) to a new "high".

Banking in a fine fettle

That everything was fine with the world's banks, was proven by the fact that UBS paid nearly a billion dollars in fines to the regulators for fixing something called LIBOR. HSBC and Standard Chartered also paid over a billion each in a fine gesture to help the struggling US economy under the guise of a punishment for money laundering.

Apple and Siri

It was a fruitful year for Apple, when it shortly became the firm with the largest market capitalization ever. As it conquered and expanded to new markets, it learnt their ways and talk and Siri started speaking Chinese when iOS 6 was released. To the delight of the Chinese iPhone users, Siri was very well informed about the location of brothels and promptly named several prominent establishments when asked "where can I find a prostitute?". This service has since been suspended and the phone now Siriously reprimands the enquirers on their cheekiness.

Bedlam in India

Indians, of course, do not have sex but still somehow manage to produce a prodigious number of babies. Many of these babies grow to become adults and need jobs which makes it imperative that the country registers a decent level of economic growth. India lost its secular momentum and reverted closer to the Hindu rate of growth. The Prime Minister made desperate efforts including allowing direct foreign investments from the likes of Walmart in retail trade. Opposition parties, true to their name, opposed this initiative (as they opposed everything else - good or bad - it is not for nothing that they are called opposition) saying that Walmart will eat the lunch of small shop owners by stealing their shoppers.

Ending the year in style

The whole world rocked to the beat of Gangnam style from Park Jae-sang, better known as PSY, whose video clocked a billion hits on YouTube. Another young Korean, a little to the North, called Kim Jong Un, son of the Great leader Kim Jong Il (who passed away last year) was declared the most handsome man by the satirical news channel called the Onion, which was widely and seriously endorsed by the China media. Kim swore to keep his country fit by allowing only low calorie diets for the country's starving people. It is rumoured that he might inadvertently succeed in shooting a rocket to the moon, by attempting to fire one at South Korea.

Cliff-hanger finish

it was a cliff-hanger finish to the year. Republicans were refusing to accept any tax increases, particularly for the rich, who they argue work harder than the poor and hence deserve more tax breaks, and the Democrats were balking at any spending cuts. Speaker of the House John Boehner, a ski enthusiast, dismissed the cliff as a mild slope and decided to use it to ski down for his new year holiday. To most others, however, it was clear that the cliff will be very sharp indeed. Despite sovereign claims it is not just an American cliff, the whole world would to enjoy the precipice. As we enter 2013 we look forward to being taken for a collective ride - you don't have to have an American passport or even a green card to enjoy the spectacle and the ride.